Spring brings ducks to our pond and hopefully... puppies to our whelping box

While I am waiting for Tuesday's puppies to be born (this is my second night of hovering over Tuesday's whelping box), finally I have a little bit of time to catch up with the blog.

Spring has finally arrived in the Helderbergs! We thought that it would never happen this year. Yesterday, on Thursday, was very warm, in the mid-60s, and even though a lot of ponds and small lakes in this area are still frozen, our pond is clear now. This year we have a chance to watch some migratory diving ducks, which have paid us a visit. Most likely they will be soon on their way north, but in the meantime we have been enjoying them.

The two pictures were taken three days ago, when we still had some ice on the pond. These are Ring-necked Ducks, and the small flock on our pond has three females and five males.

A week ago we had a nice visit from Walt Dixon, who brought Billy's son with him to run him in our fenced-in field.  Walt just got back from Cincinnati, OH, where he gave a presentation "Why in the World would I need a Blood Tracking Dog?" at the recent Biennial Gathering of the Professional Bowhunters Society.

Walt Dixon and John Jeanneney

Dachs is maturing nicely.

It seems that some rabbits survived our tough winter, and finally our dogs can get some runs on the snow-free ground. The two pictures below show Kunox von der Dohlmühle, who tomorrow is going to be nine months old. He is not a little puppy any more!

Kunox's best buddy is Mielikki, and my camera just loves her. Taking pictures of dogs is not easy, but Mielikki's engaging personality and her athleticism came through well in these two photographs.